


We all know what happens next

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [30]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Amnesia, Gen, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 08:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16425875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Summary: Going down into the ruins alone is stupid.Going down into the ruins both alone and a bit unsteady is more than just stupid.Your niece calls you suicidal. You call yourself nostalgic.





	We all know what happens next

“All sorts of rubbish left around down here, huh?”

He remembered there being more color.

The statue was risen, lighted from underneath by ethereal substrate, and the lantern by his side held no candle to the warmth it produced but it at least shed some light to the slow glowing runes underneath his feet. 

Red and purple and orange, shades of pink and lavender, and the rivets and engravings were not humming just yet but it was close, the flood was so close to the surface. Much like water filled to the brim of a cup, he decided; it was just waiting for that last push to overflow.

The waterskin in his hand was no cup, unfortunately, and it held no water, but that was the least of his concerns at best.

He chanced another look up at the towering statue, its gold shell and jewel set face, the blank circlets of its eyes and expressionless function. And took another swig from the skin in his hand.

He really shouldn't be down here, alone like this. It was all too dangerous.

That cave worm had almost nicked him earlier, and he still had dirt and all sorts of nasty things stuck to his suit from when he had fallen over avoiding its lunge. The monkeys had ganged up on it then, howling and shrieking their war cries and leaping upon its hard scaled hide. He hadn't stuck around long enough to know what ended up happening, and now he was here, covered in mud and gravel and monkey shit, perhaps a bit tipsy and certainly at the end of his rope.

Or maybe he's just finally lost all his marbles. A few of them were down here, he expected, melted and molded wrong, lost from above and some even having survived from ancient times.

Ancient times, he remembered, that had more light to it. They had liked the light flowers, the bulbs that stuck up like weeds nowadays; he remembered they used to be so much brighter.

They had liked colors, so there was a need for more light, and this place had certainly been much lighter.

Seated where he was, cross legged and a little light headed now, looking up at the statues risen form, the buzzing of the lantern the only sound echoing in this vast, empty place, he closed his eyes a moment to try and get away from the enthralling darkness.

The abysses had been explored, then, descending down onto ropes and ladders and overhanging, lighted balconies. Everything had been more than this desolate ruin, and oh how he remembered the sounds. 

Not these echoed sounds from the deep, no. There had been more to it than that.

More to it, and he remembered the crowds, the babbling, disjointed conversation, snippets and bits and pieces he'd never know the full context of.

He'd never know the context of any of it, not anymore. Lost to time, memory, and he couldn't even fully remember the sound of it, the words, the language. All he knew was noise, nothing else. Detailess it may be, but at least he had that foreign nostalgia to keep in mind. 

The vibrations in the earth shivered, shook as the caves curved under their own weight, from both tons and tons of dirt and tons and tons of traumatic memory, and he could feel it, underneath him, shuddering in vague bucks and tremors.

Not even the earth itself wanted to remember, and here he was, trying to dig into the folds of his own memory for scraps.

Opening his eyes, he searched the statues empty face, looking, looking for something, anything. Then swallowed back more of that swill he had on hand and blurrily got himself into a stand.

The pigs brews were always nasty things, bitter and rough and pulpy even, unknown substrate on the bottom that rose up like a nasty surprise, but it was cheaper for him to trade from swine than to hover on the edges of the main camp, just to see if the strongman was feeling generous enough to lend him a homebrew. Wolfgang, surprisingly, knew his stuff, knew how to age it even, and past experience did say those ales were better, of quality and taste, but it was the effort and time he had to weight in comparison.

Not to mention when someone made a little jab at him, wondered if it was such a good idea to be handing out alcohol to someone like him.

If they knew him better, they'd have known it was a terrible, terrible idea. It would probably break Wolfgang's heart, knowing what he'd get up to when he's taken all he could get from the soft hearted man. His corpses, thankfully, were easy for him to locate and thus dispose of.

Every once in awhile, the beaches around here, rough and dangerous as they were, would haul back pieces of skeleton, bleached and unknown, but only the beach scouters ever found them. His niece in particular has found a niche in taking up bone charms, and her little hybrid friend helped in any way they could.

The old woman always likes to say that creative outputs helped, but he'd disagree.

He wasn't too far gone just yet, which he decided was rather unfortunate, and wondered vaguely if the pigs had watered down what they had given him. A possibility, since they knew him by now and knew of his company; their damn piglets seemed to have a soft spot for him and his rather secretive, small magic shows.

Sometimes he couldn't help but go back to his roots, even if it was for the entertainment of piglets of all things. At least they showed appreciation for his work.

Leaving the lantern humming on the ground, the vibrations under his feet picking up, he half stumbled, half walked over, closer, to the statue, the glowing paths under his feet steadily growing stronger, lighter, louder.

That water bubble was going to pop, soon, and he grimly set his face at the thought.

“Doesn't sit right with me, you know.”

The statue had no answer to his slightly louder than normal voice, like usual, and he stopped in front of it, looking up at its tall visage.

They were such big things, such large creatures, and their statues caught their likeness almost perfectly. The jewel set staff in its hand caught his eye, purple shined and swirling with its own lesser aura, and he sighed, a crooked smile crawling over his face at the irony.

“Purple means power, don't we both know that, pal?”

A shake of his head, a huff of an almost laugh, and the ruins trembled under their memories beneath his feet, trembled under the wrongdoings and mistakes and wrongness of it all.

He remembered lights, he remembered colors, he remembered sounds, and he remembered a hulking behemoth, a presence by his shoulder, leading him about the city and talking in that forgotten language, laughing and pointing out the sights, to give the new Shadow King a sense of this world.

And yet, he remembered when they all shed their skins and learned a new way of life. 

But even that was pocket marked with forgetfulness, emptiness, and he didn't think he'd ever be able to place the exact details.

All he knew, looking up as the statue was engulfed in run off black steam and smoke, molded and shaped into something of anguish and screaming, was that it had been a painful thing to endure.

The ground stopped its trembling, icy still, as if frozen in shock, he thought, the glowing runes and engravings bursting with red and purple, maroon lavender and neon pink, the colors dancing away in the distance of the darkness, the whole set land coming to life in its cycle. The silent emptiness roared a moment, the phantom memory, before descending into a mumbling ambience of the new lighted world.

It wouldn't stay long, he knew, but it was here nonetheless.

Inky splots started to build in the crevices of the statues face, gelatinous globs oozing from its open jaws, dribbling down its gold plated chest to pool into the glowing ground, to soak back into the earth. Tar trails fell, creeped down, from its engraved, squinted eyes, tears that dripped downwards and splattered over the rest of its twisted upwards torso, and he sighed again, lowered his head at the sight.

Even under his own impressions of it all, the sight of the fuel was a tempting one.

All too tempting, and it was much too easy, taking from the long dead and gone.

“Apologies, old friend.” He took a few steps forward, eyed the waterskin on his hand and grimacing at the taste still on his tongue. It hadn't done what he had wanted of it, unfortunately. “But nothing ever turns out the way we want, does it?”

With that he tipped the skin over, let the last of what he had left spill to the runed ground at the statues feet, and the ambient silence was cold and dark and empty. The oil pooling on the earth quivered, reacted to the alcohol, and looking into its sheen he could almost see faces, flashes of expression and eyes gazing back up to him pleadingly.

He had the decency to wait a few moments, to toss the empty skin away apathetically and clean his hands of the ordeal, adjusting his dirtied, if dry, suit. 

The statue was nothing more than a long forgotten warning, not the one he was looking for, looking it in the upturned eyes and its fuel leaking, screaming self. Then he stretched out a stiff hand, worn leather glove all the protective requirement he'd need, and caught the stream of Nightmare Fuel as it fell, thick and jelly like as it pooled in his palm.

The faces flashed over once more, some more familiar than others, and for half a second, as he pulled back the generous amount in his hand to look down upon, he caught a flash of red rose.

Another grimace on his face, before he glanced back up at the frozen statue and raised his hand, the fuel humming and warm even through the gloves cover, a crooked mock smile appearing on his face.

“Cheers, pal. Here's to the rest of eternity.”

And then he tilted his head back and took the shot, temptation winning out.

Spiced and white hot, burning a path down his throat, and he had to take a few deep breaths through his nose to not choke, the icy afterburn cold and making his breath billow out in a fog. So foreign, compared to the stuff he made himself upstairs, but he had expected it.

Bubbling up from deep underground, fresh and raw, unrefined, and its take was very different from the used scraps he was so accustomed to.

Finally straightening up, rolling his shoulders a moment with his eyes closed, slightly teary but getting a hold of himself, he inhaled and exhaled deeply, carefully. He had goosebumps all up and down his clothed arms, the hairs on the back of his neck pricking, but he had gotten it down nonetheless.

When he chanced a look up the statue was unchanged, as always, purple jeweled staff shining and yet held outwards, as if forgotten.

He eyed it, the swirl and flashing of its inner magic. Powerful, yet forgotten, useless now.

Nothing but a cheap decoration. Such gems were really not all that hard to make.

The fuel in his gut was heavy, and a mistake, but a tempting one. He had made his decision long ago, and there was no going back.

Looking up at the statues twisted, agonized face, he recognized that they had both made the same choice.

A shiver ran up his spine, and he closed his eyes before he could catch sight of the flickering shadow nearby, watching with bleach white eyes, the twitching of spines and madness. That one, however, wasn't his concern.

It was the one right behind him, breathing silently, jaws opening and closing, milk blank eyes staring him down, that had his attention.

The ground hummed, ruins energized and livid with how close its pure component was bubbling up, the fabric of the universe so close and yet so far away. Underneath this thin crust of ground, he knew, was a black ocean, blanketed over with faces and screams.

After a moment, a stalemate of sorts, he rolled his shoulders, straightened himself up, and turned around to face the shadow, schooled and perfected as he eyed it glumly.

It didn't even blink, only a shudder through its nonexistent form, and its hulking presence increased, grew as it fed off the spiced air, the fuel laden atmosphere, thick with nightmares, both real and imagined.

“I wonder, is there no reasoning to be had with you?”

Thinking out loud, quietly, and still the shadow made no move, no indication it even knew he was there besides the fact that it's great eyes were so trained upon him. In a sense, he could almost feel its wanting, its lusting, its hunger.

They all felt that way, nowadays, and he's known the feeling all too well himself. It was almost a blessing, that its strength has faded from him the longer he's been separated from the heart of the world.

Then again, what was he without it? A dirt ridden mortal, pitiful, and nothing but a worm in the eyes of those he had once considered allies, of a sort.

He could feel its hunger, the closeness of temptation, as it watched him slowly stretch out his hand back to the statue, back to its eternal stream of black tears. It wouldn't take much for it to decide he was worth the effort, especially with the fuel still in his gut, the scraps and distilled, diluted amount that flowed through his veins. Watered down he may be, now, but blood was still blood at the end of the day, and mortals had a taste about them he could still, in the darkest of nights, remember, a sweet film on the tongue. 

It was too bad he just couldn't satisfy himself anymore, stuck on the edge of forgetting and remembering. It was maddening, at times, but there was little he could do now. 

The fuel pooled in his outstretched hand, overflowed and warmed his glove as it dripped down, and he squinted his eyes in discomfort as it trailed down his hand, his wrist and arm, streaking his suit sleeve. If he hadn't known better, he'd have likened it to fingers, curious and warm and prodding.

But he did know better, and lusting, searching tongues were an even worse alternative.

Ignorance was bliss. But he's made his choice.

The shadow shuddered, hulking in its weight, as if the darkness around him was only it, one being, only him and it, and the way its jaws parted, nonexistent fog escaping in nonexistent breath, was a second warning.

Patience didn't become it.

Carefully he pulled back his hand, ignored the crawling, dripping feel of too much fuel touching his bare skin, and didn't break eye contact as he stretched his arm out, invitingly, to the shadow. The fuel quivered, he could feel it shivering in his palm, the light way it attempted to cling to him, and temptation rose up fitfully in his throat for a brief moment.

But he didn't even give it a glance. Willpower he may be lacking at times, but this was not one of them.

The shadow unhinged its jaw in a silent, shaking scream, whole form shuddering as its many claws and limbs lashed against the runed ground, harmless to the glowing warm paths. He could feel it, feel its wanting, and oh how badly it wanted.

Him, the fuel, the very ground he walked upon; this entire plane was one of lustful, greedy wanting.

And he was not going to stand in its way.

Who was he to deny it? He had no right.

Flattening his palm, feeling the fuel swish and cling and stick to him, warm and thrumming with its own heartbeat, he closed his eyes, face hardened and slightly bared. The shivers going up his spine were strong, buzzing numbly even from how heated the oil was, touching his bare skin, but he stubbornly refused its offers and waited.

A few moments of nonsilence, the hum of this place as ambience and shadow life crawled and slithered about, so many eyes that he knew were out in the darkness.

For a moment, he focused on the warmth, the heat of living oil, and its steady, pulsing heartbeat. If he looked, perhaps he'd see his own face, glasses shining back at him.

Too bad he lost those, so long ago. Squinting all the time was a bother.

He didn't open his eyes when he felt movement, the stagnant air swishing as the ruins ambience shuddered, the cycle coming to an end. It was almost disappointing, how short of a time it lasted.

Almost, but not quite.

The emptiness in his hand was sudden, heat eaten away by a icy touch, and he could practically imagine the claws that brushed over his palm, the shimmering form that towered over him, milk white eyes blinding and locked onto his simple mortal existence.

But his imagination was lacking in certain areas, especially those of another planes. He had no clue what, in the end, took his meager offering, but when the ground vibrated underneath his feet and he opened his eyes to a blue landscape, the colors faded and dull and having long forgotten the true vibrancy of this place, he found himself alone.

The lantern hummed nearby, the statue only bathed by a faint light underneath it, the slick oil puddle it had produced having sunk deep into the earth, back to where it had originated from. He was getting nothing else from it.

Its expressionless face caught his, a moment of silence, and then he sighed, looked away, shoulders sagging.

“We are far too similar, pal.” He rubbed a hand over his face, grimacing a moment at realizing his glove was dirtied and just how much of a mess he must look. He shouldn't have come down here.

“Let's not meet again, old friend.”

With that he turned about and scooped up his lantern, the light going faint now, though not dangerously. He had enough to get out of this abandoned place, he knew that for sure. 

As his footsteps echoed over the rune engraved ground, the quiet rumbles of the deep caverns a silent ambience of noise, the statues warning light slowly faded.

And, out in the darkness behind it, left behind, white eyes opened, watched the form retreating to the above world.

It was patient. It could wait. It had all the time in the world.

And nothing, nothing else left to do.


End file.
